YCLOAK

Qatar World Cup organizers on Wednesday warned fans to brace for “congestion” in the first two weeks of the tournament when the peak number of supporters will be packing the Gulf state’s capital. 

Private cars will be banned from many streets and residents near some stadiums will need permits to get to their homes, organizers and government officials told a press conference as they outlined measures to avoid a World Cup jam. 

The tiny state of 2.9 million people will be the smallest to hold the World Cup that starts November 20. 

Qatar has spent billions of dollars on a state-of-the-art driverless metro rail network that serves five of the eight stadiums and will also have 3,200 extra buses and 3,000 taxis on the road. 

More than one million fans are expected to visit during the 29 days. But there will be four group matches a day during the first two weeks of the tournament and officials are predicting more than 300,000 fans could be milling around the streets of Doha at the same time during the most intense days. 

Organizers are pressing local residents to take “private transportation,” including their own cars, if they go to matches. 

They are “encouraged to drive where possible” and leave trains and buses to the million-plus foreign fans expected to visit during the tournament, said an organizing committee statement. 

“We expect congestion,” said Abdulaziz al-Mawlawi, mobility director for the Qatar organizing committee. 

“Having four matches in one day is a challenge in a region or city like Doha,” declared Mawlawi, who added that there were “solutions” to get to stadiums and for daily life. 

Mawlawi said organizers wanted to “warn fans to abide by restrictions,” leave early to reach World Cup matches on time and avoid having one person in a car. 

“These things will reduce the expected congestion. Whether in Qatar or any country in the world, congestion is expected in a tournament such as the World Cup.” 

Most private cars will be banned from around central Doha for the tournament with a $140 fine for offenders. Residents around four of the eight stadiums will need a permit to be able to drive to and from their homes. 
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Angela Lansbury, the big-eyed, scene-stealing British actress who kicked up her heels in the Broadway musicals “Mame” and “Gypsy” and solved endless murders as crime novelist Jessica Fletcher in the long-running TV series “Murder, She Wrote,” has died. She was 96.

Lansbury died Tuesday at her home in Los Angeles, according to a statement from her three children. She died five days shy of her 97th birthday.

Lansbury won five Tony Awards for her Broadway performances and a lifetime achievement award. She earned Academy Award nominations as supporting actress for two of her first three films, “Gaslight” (1945) and “The Picture of Dorian Gray” (1946), and she was nominated again in 1962 for “The Manchurian Candidate” and her deadly portrayal of a Communist agent and the title character’s mother.

Her mature demeanor prompted producers to cast her much older than her actual age. In 1948, when she was 23, her hair was streaked with gray so she could play a fortyish newspaper publisher with a yen for Spencer Tracy in “State of the Union.”

Her stardom came in middle age when she became the hit of the New York theater, winning Tony Awards for “Mame” (1966), “Dear World” (1969), “Gypsy” (1975) and “Sweeney Todd” (1979).

She was back on Broadway and got another Tony nomination in 2007 in Terrence McNally’s “Deuce,” playing a scrappy, brash former tennis star, reflecting with another ex-star as she watches a modern-day match from the stands. In 2009, she collected her fifth Tony, for best featured actress in a revival of Noel Coward’s “Blithe Spirit” and in 2015 won an Olivier Award in the role.

But Lansbury’s widest fame began in 1984 when she launched “Murder, She Wrote” on CBS. Based loosely on Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple stories, the series centered on Jessica Fletcher, a middle-aged widow and former substitute schoolteacher living in the seaside village of Cabot Cove, Maine. She had achieved notice as a mystery novelist and amateur sleuth.

The actress found the first series season exhausting.

“I was shocked when I learned that I had to work 12-15 hours a day, relentlessly, day in, day out,” she recalled. “I had to lay down the law at one point and say `Look, I can’t do these shows in seven days; it will have to be eight days.'”

CBS and the production company, Universal Studio, agreed, especially since “Murder, She Wrote” had become a Sunday night hit. Despite the long days — she left her home at Brentwood in West Los Angeles at 6 a.m. and returned after dark — and reams of dialogue to memorize, Lansbury maintained a steady pace. She was pleased that Jessica Fletcher served as an inspiration for older women.

“Women in motion pictures have always had a difficult time being role models for other women,” she observed. “They’ve always been considered glamorous in their jobs.”

In the series’ first season, Jessica wore clothes that were almost frumpy. Then she acquired smartness, Lansbury reasoning that, as a successful woman, Jessica should dress the part.

“Murder, She Wrote” stayed high in the ratings through its 11th year. Then CBS, seeking a younger audience for Sunday night, shifted the series to a less favorable midweek slot. Lansbury protested vigorously to no avail. As expected, the ratings plummeted and the show was canceled. For consolation, CBS contracted for two-hour movies of “Murder, She Wrote” and other specials starring Lansbury.

“Murder, She Wrote” and other television work brought her 18 Emmy nominations, but she never won one. She holds the record for the most Golden Globe nominations and wins for best actress in a television drama series and the most Emmy nominations for lead actress in a drama series.

In a 2008 Associated Press interview, Lansbury said she still welcomed the right script but did not want to play “old, decrepit women,” she said. “I want women my age to be represented the way they are, which is vital, productive members of society.”

“I’m astonished at the amount of stuff I managed to pack into the years that I have been in the business. And I’m still here!”
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As awareness grows around the world about the problem of food waste, one culprit in particular is drawing scrutiny: “best before” labels.

Manufacturers have used the labels for decades to estimate peak freshness. Unlike “use by” labels, which are found on perishable foods like meat and dairy, “best before” labels have nothing to do with safety and may encourage consumers to throw away food that’s perfectly fine to eat.

“They read these dates and then they assume that it’s bad, they can’t eat it and they toss it, when these dates don’t actually mean that they’re not edible or they’re not still nutritious or tasty,” said Patty Apple, a manager at Food Shift, an Alameda, California, nonprofit that collects and uses expired or imperfect foods.

To tackle the problem, major U.K. chains like Waitrose, Sainsbury’s and Marks & Spencer recently removed “best before” labels from prepackaged fruit and vegetables. The European Union is expected to announce a revamp to its labeling laws by the end of this year; it’s considering abolishing “best before” labels altogether.

In the U.S., there’s no similar push to scrap “best before” labels. But there is growing momentum to standardize the language on date labels to help educate buyers about food waste, including a push from big grocers and food companies and bipartisan legislation in Congress.

“I do think that the level of support for this has grown tremendously,” said Dana Gunders, executive director of ReFED, a New York-based nonprofit that studies food waste.

The United Nations estimates that 17% of global food production is wasted each year; most of that comes from households. In the U.S., as much as 35% of food available goes uneaten, ReFED says. That adds up to a lot of wasted energy — including the water, land and labor that goes into the food production — and higher greenhouse gas emissions when unwanted food goes into landfills.

There are many reasons food gets wasted, from large portion sizes to customers’ rejection of imperfect produce. But ReFED estimates that 7% of U.S. food waste — or 4 million tons annually — is due to consumer confusion over “best before” labels.

Date labels were widely adopted by manufacturers in the 1970s to answer consumers’ concerns about product freshness. There are no federal rules governing them, and manufacturers are allowed to determine when they believe their products will taste best. Only infant formula is required to have a “use by” date in the U.S.

Since 2019, the Food and Drug Administration — which regulates around 80% of U.S. food — has recommended that manufacturers use the labels “best if used by” for freshness and “use by” for perishable goods, based on surveys showing that consumers understand those phrases.

But the effort is voluntary, and the language on labels continues to vary widely, from “sell by” to “enjoy by” to “freshest before.” A survey released in June by researchers at the University of Maryland found at least 50 different date labels used on U.S. grocery shelves and widespread confusion among customers.

“Most people believe that if it says ‘sell by,’ ‘best by’ or ‘expiration,’ you can’t eat any of them. That’s not actually accurate,” said Richard Lipsit, who owns a Grocery Outlet store in Pleasanton, California, that specializes in discounted food.

Lipsit said milk can be safely consumed up to a week after its “use by” date. Gunders said canned goods and many other packaged foods can be safely eaten for years after their “best before” date. The FDA suggests consumers look for changes in color, consistency or texture to determine if foods are all right to eat.

“Our bodies are very well equipped to recognize the signs of decay, when food is past its edible point,” Gunders said. “We’ve lost trust in those senses and we’ve replaced it with trust in these dates.”

Some U.K. grocery chains are actively encouraging customers to use their senses. Morrisons removed “use by” dates from most store-brand milk in January and replaced them with a “best before” label. Co-op, another grocery chain, did the same to its store-brand yogurts.

It’s a change some shoppers support. Ellie Spanswick, a social media marketer in Falmouth, England, buys produce, eggs and other groceries at farm stands and local shops when she can. The food has no labels, she said, but it’s easy to see that it’s fresh.

“The last thing we need to be doing is wasting more food and money because it has a label on it telling us it’s past being good for eating,” Spanswick said.

But not everyone agrees. Ana Wetrov of London, who runs a home renovation business with her husband, worries that without labels, staff might not know which items should be removed from shelves. She recently bought a pineapple and only realized after she cut into it that it was rotting in the middle.

“We have had dates on those packages for the last 20 years or so. Why fix it when it’s not broken?” Wetrov said.

Some U.S. chains — including Walmart — have shifted their store brands to standardized “best if used by” and “use by” labels. The Consumer Brands Association — which represents big food companies like General Mills and Dole — also encourages members to use those labels.

“Uniformity makes it much more simple for our companies to manufacture products and keep the prices lower,” said Katie Denis, the association’s vice president of communications.

In the absence of federal policy, states have stepped in with their own laws, frustrating food companies and grocers. Florida and Nevada, for example, require “sell by” dates on shellfish and dairy, and Arizona requires “best by” or “use by” dates on eggs, according to Emily Broad Lieb, director of the Food Law and Policy Clinic at Harvard Law School.

The confusion has led some companies, like Unilever, to support legislation currently in Congress that would standardize U.S. date labels and ensure that food could be donated to rescue organizations even after its quality date. At least 20 states currently prohibit the sale or donation of food after the date listed on the label because of liability fears, Lieb said.

Clearer labeling and donation rules could help nonprofits like Food Shift, which trains chefs using rescued food. It even makes dog treats from overripe bananas, recovered chicken fat and spent grain from a brewer, Apple said.

“We definitely need to be focusing more on doing these small actions like addressing expiration date labels, because even though it’s such a tiny part of this whole food waste issue, it can be very impactful,” Apple said.
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South Korea’s military appears to want to conscript members of the K-pop supergroup BTS for mandatory military duties, as the public remains sharply divided over whether they should be given exemptions.

Lee Ki Sik, commissioner of the Military Manpower Administration, told lawmakers on Friday that it’s “desirable” for BTS members to fulfill their military duties to ensure fairness in the country’s military service.

Earlier this week, Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup made almost identical comments about BTS at a parliamentary committee meeting, and Culture Minister Park Bo Gyoon said his ministry would soon finalize its position on the issue.

Whether the band’s seven members must serve in the army is one of the hottest issues in South Korea because its oldest member, Jin, faces possible enlistment early next year after turning 30 in December.

Under South Korean law, all able-bodied men are required to perform 18-21 months of military service. But the law provides special exemptions for athletes, classical and traditional musicians, and ballet and other dancers who have won top prizes in certain competitions that enhance national prestige.

Without a revision of the law, the government can take steps to grant special exemptions. But past exemptions for people who performed well in non-designated competitions triggered serious debate about the fairness of the system.

Since the draft forces young men to suspend their professional careers or studies, the dodging of military duties or creation of exemptions is a highly sensitive issue.

In one recent survey, about 61% of respondents supported exemptions for entertainers such as BTS, while in another, about 54% said BTS members should serve in the military.

Several amendments of the conscription law that would pave the way for BTS members to be exempted have been introduced in the National Assembly, but haven’t been voted on with lawmakers sharply divided on the matter.

Lee, the defense minister, earlier said he had ordered officials to consider conducting a public survey to help determine whether to grant exemptions to BTS. But the Defense Ministry later said it would not carry out such a survey.

In August, Lee said if BTS members join the military, they would likely be allowed to continue practicing and to join other non-serving BTS members in overseas group tours.

People who are exempted from the draft are released from the military after three weeks of basic training. They are also required to perform 544 hours of volunteer work and continue serving in their professional fields for 34 months.
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This year’s Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to three recipients: Ales Bialiatski, one of the initiators of the democracy movement that emerged in Belarus in the mid-1980s; and two human rights groups – Memorial, a Russian organization, and the Center for Civil Liberties, a Ukrainian group.

Last year’s Peace Prize was awarded to Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov, a Russian. The Nobel Committee said the two received the award “for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace.”

The award is accompanied by a nearly $1 million prize and an 18-karat gold medal.

Muratov sold his Noble medal to benefit Ukrainian children displaced by the war. An anonymous philanthropist bought the gold disc for $103.5 million.

Other winners of the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize have included: Martin Luther King Jr., The Red Cross, Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Dag Hammarskjold, and Barack Obama.

No prize was awarded during World War II, from 1940-45.
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Fleeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine, two mothers find themselves in an unusual place, Nu Boyana Film Studios, in Sofia, Bulgaria. Eastern Europe’s largest film company, it has participated in the production of over 400 Hollywood films. This moving work, Kyiv-Sofia-Hollywood, follows these two women as they rebuild their lives in a new country and find their way in the film industry. On their journey, they overcome challenges and find success, begging the question of whether they will eventually ever return to their homeland, Ukraine.
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The Swedish Academy Thursday awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature to French author Annie Ernaux for “the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory.”

The academy made the announcement at a news conference in Stockholm.

Ernaux, 82, is known for her largely autobiographical works and has written more than 20 books of both fiction and memoirs based on her own life and often intensely personal experiences. She called the Nobel Prize a “great honor” and “responsibility.”

Her latest book, “Getting Lost,” which was published last month, is a series of diary entries from 1988 through 1990 and includes intimate details from her romantic encounters.

Ernaux is the 16th French person to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature, three more than any other country.

The honor includes a more than $900,000 cash award that is shared equally among all the laureates.

The prizes for medicine, physics and chemistry were awarded earlier this week. The Nobel Peace Prize is due to be announced Friday and the prize for economics on Monday.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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A tender and touching letter that author John Steinbeck penned to his teenage son, offering fatherly advice after the young man confided that he was in love for the first time, is going up for auction.

Boston-based RR Auction says the handwritten draft of a letter to his eldest son, Thomas — then 14 — shows the Of Mice and Men author’s empathy: He refused to dismiss it as puppy love.

“While this letter offers an intimate, private glimpse into Steinbeck’s family life, it also expresses his ideas about love with profundity and eloquence,” said Bobby Livingston, executive vice president of the auction house.

In the two-page letter, dated Nov. 10, 1958, the Nobel Literature Prize laureate told his son: “If you are in love — that’s a good thing — that’s about the best thing that can happen to anyone. Don’t let anyone make it small or light to you.”

Steinbeck, who won a Pulitzer for The Grapes of Wrath in 1940 and the Nobel in 1962 for a body of acclaimed work, showed he was no stranger to matters of the heart.

“The object of love is the best, and most beautiful. Try to live up to it,” he wrote. “If you love someone — there is no possible harm in saying so — only you must remember that some people are very shy and sometimes the saying must take that shyness into consideration.

“Girls have a way of knowing or feeling what you feel, but they usually like to hear it also,” he said. “It sometimes happens that what you feel is not returned for one reason or another — but that does not make your feeling less valuable and good.

“If it is right, it happens — The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away,” the California-born novelist wrote, signing his letter simply: “Love, Father.”

John Steinbeck died in 1968, and Thomas Steinbeck died in 2016.

The text of the letter has been published for worldwide audiences, including in 1989’s Steinbeck: A Life in Letters, by Penguin Books.

Legal wrangling over his estate has dragged on for decades. In 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a decision awarding Steinbeck’s stepdaughter $5 million in a family dispute over abandoned plans for movies of some of Steinbeck’s best-known works.

Thomas Steinbeck, a writer in his own right, fiercely defended his father’s work, adapting several of his father’s books for movies and launching legal efforts to protect the copyrights of his father and others.
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Oscar-winning actors Marion Cotillard and Juliette Binoche, as well as other French stars of screen and music, filmed themselves chopping off locks of their hair in a video posted Wednesday in support of protesters in Iran.

“For freedom,” Binoche said as she hacked a large handful of hair off the top of her head with a pair of scissors, before brandishing it in front of the camera.

The video, hashtagged HairForFreedom, comes with Iran engulfed by anti-government protests. They were sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after her arrest for allegedly violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code.

The video of Cotillard, Binoche and dozens of other women cutting off locks of their hair was released on an Instagram account, “soutienfemmesiran” — which translates as “support women in Iran.”

“These women, these men are asking for our support. Their courage and their dignity obliges us,” said a post with the video.

“We have decided to respond to the appeal made to us by cutting — us too — some of these locks.”

Some of the other women who took part included actors Charlotte Rampling and Charlotte Gainsbourg, who was also filmed cutting off a lock of hair from the head of her mother, singer Jane Birkin.
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Loretta Lynn, the Kentucky coal miner’s daughter whose frank songs about life and love as a woman in Appalachia pulled her out of poverty and made her a pillar of country music, has died. She was 90.

In a statement provided to The Associated Press, Lynn’s family said she died Tuesday at her home in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee.

Lynn already had four children before launching her career in the early 1960s, and her songs reflected her pride in her rural Kentucky background.

As a songwriter, she crafted a persona of a defiantly tough woman, a contrast to the stereotypical image of most female country singers. The Country Music Hall of Famer wrote fearlessly about sex and love, cheating husbands, divorce and birth control and sometimes got in trouble with radio programmers for material from which even rock performers once shied away.

Her biggest hits came in the 1960s and ’70s, including “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” “You Ain’t Woman Enough,” “The Pill,” “Don’t Come Home a Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind),” “Rated X” and “You’re Looking at Country.” She was known for appearing in floor-length, wide gowns with elaborate embroidery or rhinestones, many created by her longtime personal assistant and designer Tim Cobb.

Her honesty and unique place in country music was rewarded. She was the first woman ever named entertainer of the year at the genre’s two major awards shows, first by the Country Music Association in 1972 and then by the Academy of Country Music three years later.

“It was what I wanted to hear and what I knew other women wanted to hear, too,” Lynn told the AP in 2016. “I didn’t write for the men; I wrote for us women. And the men loved it, too.”

In 1969, she released her autobiographical “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” which helped her reach her widest audience yet.

“We were poor but we had love/That’s the one thing Daddy made sure of/He shoveled coal to make a poor man’s dollar,” she sang.

“Coal Miner’s Daughter,” also the title of her 1976 book, was made into a 1980 movie of the same name. Sissy Spacek’s portrayal of Lynn won her an Academy Award and the film was also nominated for best picture.

Long after her commercial peak, Lynn won two Grammys in 2005 for her album “Van Lear Rose,” which featured 13 songs she wrote, including “Portland, Oregon” about a drunken one-night stand. “Van Lear Rose” was a collaboration with rocker Jack White, who produced the album and played the guitar parts.

Born Loretta Webb, the second of eight children, she claimed her birthplace was Butcher Holler, near the coal mining company town of Van Lear in the mountains of east Kentucky. There really wasn’t a Butcher Holler, however. She later told a reporter that she made up the name for the purposes of the song based on the names of the families that lived there.

Her daddy played the banjo, her mama played the guitar and she grew up on the songs of the Carter Family.

“I was singing when I was born, I think,” she told the AP in 2016. “Daddy used to come out on the porch where I would be singing and rocking the babies to sleep. He’d say, ‘Loretta, shut that big mouth. People all over this holler can hear you.’ And I said, ‘Daddy, what difference does it make? They are all my cousins.'”

She wrote in her autobiography that she was 13 when she got married to Oliver “Mooney” Lynn, but the AP later discovered state records that showed she was 15. Tommy Lee Jones played Mooney Lynn in the biopic.

Her husband, whom she called “Doo” or “Doolittle,” urged her to sing professionally and helped promote her early career. With his help, she earned a recording contract with Decca Records, later MCA, and performed on the Grand Ole Opry stage. Lynn wrote her first hit single, “I’m a Honky Tonk Girl,” released in 1960.

She also teamed up with singer Conway Twitty to form one of the most popular duos in country music with hits such as “Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man” and “After the Fire is Gone,” which earned them a Grammy Award. Their duets, and her single records, were always mainstream country and not crossover or pop-tinged.

The Academy of Country Music chose her as the artist of the decade for the 1970s, and she was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1988.

In “Fist City,” Lynn threatens a hair-pulling fistfight if another woman won’t stay away from her man: “I’m here to tell you, gal, to lay off of my man/If you don’t want to go to Fist City.” That strong-willed but traditional country woman reappears in other Lynn songs. In “The Pill,” a song about sex and birth control, Lynn writes about how she’s sick of being trapped at home to take care of babies: “The feelin’ good comes easy now/Since I’ve got the pill,” she sang.

She moved to Hurricane Mills, Tennessee, outside of Nashville, in the 1990s, where she set up a ranch complete with a replica of her childhood home and a museum that is a popular roadside tourist stop. The dresses she was known for wearing are there, too.

Lynn knew that her songs were trailblazing, especially for country music, but she was just writing the truth that so many rural women like her experienced.

“I could see that other women was goin’ through the same thing, ’cause I worked the clubs. I wasn’t the only one that was livin’ that life and I’m not the only one that’s gonna be livin’ today what I’m writin’,” she told The AP in 1995.

Even into her later years, Lynn never seemed to stop writing, scoring a multi-album deal in 2014 with Legacy Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment. In 2017, she suffered a stroke that forced her to postpone her shows.

She and her husband were married nearly 50 years before he died in 1996. They had six children: Betty, Jack, Ernest and Clara, and then twins Patsy and Peggy. She had 17 grandchildren and four step-grandchildren.
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Native American actress and activist Sacheen Littlefeather, who declined the best-actor award on behalf of Marlon Brando during an Oscars protest in 1973, has died aged 75, the motion picture Academy said on Monday.

Littlefeather, who the Hollywood Reporter said died at her home in California on Sunday surrounded by loved ones, was catapulted to fame when her friend Brando boycotted the 45th Oscars ceremony over what he viewed as the stereotypical portrayal of Native Americans in films and on television.

Taking to the stage in a traditional buckskin dress to refuse the Oscar — awarded for Brando’s portrayal of Vito Corleone in “The Godfather” — in his stead, she gave a critical speech on the same issue, also drawing attention to a protest at Wounded Knee, South Dakota against the mistreatment of American Indians.

She was booed off for her remarks and boycotted by the film industry for decades.

This year Littlefeather, who had been diagnosed with breast cancer, received a belated apology letter from then-Academy president David Rubin, and last month the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures held an event in her honor.

“I was representing all indigenous voices out there, all indigenous people, because we have never been heard in that way before,” she said, reflecting on what happened in 1973.
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Kim Kardashian has agreed to settle charges of unlawfully touting a crypto security and to pay $1.26 million in penalties, disgorgement and interest, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said on Monday.

The SEC said in a statement that reality television star and influencer Kardashian failed to disclose that she was paid $250,000 to publish the post about EMAX tokens, the crypto asset security being offered by EthereumMax on her Instagram account.

“This case is a reminder that, when celebrities or influencers endorse investment opportunities, including crypto asset securities, it doesn’t mean that those investment products are right for all investors,” SEC Chair Gary Gensler said.

The U.S. regulator also charged Boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. and a music producer known as “DJ Khaled” in November 2018 for allegedly not disclosing payments they received for promoting investments in initial coin offerings.

Neither Mayweather nor Khaled Mohamed Khaled admitted or denied the SEC’s charges, but agreed to pay a combined $767,500 in fines and penalties.
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The remains of dozens of Indigenous Maori and Moriori people were officially received at New Zealand’s national museum in Wellington Sunday, completing a repatriation process from Austria, where the bones have resided for more than 130 years.

The repatriation “powhiri,” or welcoming ceremony, in bitterly cold, wet conditions at Te Papa concluded when the remains of about 64 Maori and Moriori — the Indigenous people of mainland New Zealand and the Chatham Islands — were taken to the museum’s Rongomaraeroa Marae, a sacred resting place.

The event completed a six-day journey for the remains, which left from the Natural History Museum in Vienna.

Records show that most of the bones, including skulls, were collected by Austrian taxidermist and grave robber Andreas Reischek, who spent 12 years in New Zealand until 1889.

The remains were housed for decades in Austria’s capital after being “stolen with no regard” from New Zealand’s “iwi” (tribes), officials from the two countries agreed.

Reischek’s diaries outlined how he looted graves without permission from several locations, including the Chatham Islands.

William “Pou” Temara, chairperson of Te Papa’s Repatriation Advisory Panel, said the repatriation — the largest from Austria to New Zealand — was significant.

“It is always a spiritual relief and privilege to welcome back our ancestors who have been victims of such wrongdoing. Culturally we know that they are weeping with joy now that they have returned to Aotearoa (New Zealand) where at last they will rest in peace.”

Te Papa’s acting head of repatriation TeArikirangi Mamaku-Ironside praised the assistance of colleagues in Austria in concluding 77 years of negotiations between the countries.

“The Natural History Museum, Vienna has made a profound commitment to right the wrongs of the past and approached this work with a spirit of openness and reconciliation,” said Temara, before adding that a government-funded repatriation program has numerous ongoing projects to pursue.

“While we’ve seen an increase in conversations about repatriating human remains, there is still a lot of work to do to bring all our ancestors home.”

The remains will reside at Te Papa while iwi are consulted to determine a final resting place.
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The nearly 400-year-old-year Passion play performed by the people of the German alpine village of Oberammergau comes to a close after a nearly five-month run, with viewers saying this year was especially meaningful as the play was delayed by two years by the COVID-19 pandemic. Villagers kept their vow to perform the play every 10 years, made in 1633 to avert the ravages of the plague.

Oberammergau native Christian Stückl has directed the Passion Play for more than 30 years, several times reworking the 100-year-old script, modernizing it, and removing antisemitic references.

“As a spectator you don’t really have to bring anything [in terms of religious understanding], you can just turn up,” Stückl said of the audience that comes from around the world to see the famous production.

“But as a director, if I didn’t have the belief and conviction that there is a certain power behind this story, behind this Jesus, I wouldn’t be able to tell this story,” Stückl said.

Ruth Aspinall traveled from Britain to see the Passion play and said she really liked this year’s production, finding it meaningful in several ways.

“Well, it’s my fifth time of coming and I don’t mean fifth in one year. So, that it explains it all, I would think. Very much so, it’s much simpler. I loved the Resurrection. It’s never been used before. It was just sort of hinted at before. But this time, all the disciples come on and lit candles. Mary was happy. Then everybody sang hallelujah. It ended much more joyful,” said Aspinall.

The play’s deputy director, Abdullah Kenan Karaca, also plays the priest, Nicodemas. Karaca is the son of Turkish immigrants and grew up in Oberammergau, a predominately Catholic village. But the village, too, is becoming reflective of Germany’s increased diversity, taking in refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, Nigeria and Ukraine. This is the first time the play has included a leading Muslim actor, Cengiz Gorur. Karaca, a professional theater director, says his first theater experience was performing in the Passion play as a child.

“The motivation why people are in the play is totally different. Some people, because of their faith, they want to fulfill the vow, other ones they just fascinated by the big production we have. Everyone is trying their best and do it really with their heart. This is really beautiful that the Passion play, the story of Jesus, can bring a lot of people together,” he said.

For Oberammergau native Frederik Mayet, one of two actors who plays Jesus, conveying Jesus’ message of love and hope to the audience is important.

“You always have to find the words that reach the people of today. We notice now in this Passion play year, the people are really touched. The power, joy, and enthusiasm we have on stage reaches the people in the auditorium automatically and that’s something special. When the choir is singing, when there are hundreds of persons on stage, sometimes it’s a magical moment,” he said.

Mayet portrayed Jesus for a second time and comes from a family with a long history of participating in the Passion play, starting in 1890. His children, 3 and 8, have also been on stage this year.
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While European Union nations are still mulling a cap on gas prices, some businesses are more in a hurry for solutions to the continent’s energy crisis.

In Brussels, the epicenter of the EU, restaurant owners have imagined how a future without gas and electricity would look like for gourmets.

The guests at the dinner served at the Brasserie Surrealiste and cooked by Racines employees this week were the first to experience it: No ovens, no stoves, no hot plates, no coffee machines and no light bulbs.

Still, great food.

Just cold entrees, or slightly grilled over the flaming charcoal grill of a Japanese barbecue, served at candle-lit tables.

“The idea is to go back to the cave age,” said Francesco Cury, the Racines owner. “We prepared a whole series of dishes that just need to be grilled for a few seconds … But the search for taste, for the amazing, for the stunning, is still part of our business.”

On the menu: brioche with anchovies, porchetta and focaccia cooked on a wood fire, raw white tuna, grilled pork with beans, and ricotta cream with pumpkin jam and pistachios as desert.

But what sounds like a romantic atmosphere and a one-time experience is actually what customers could face more permanently if energy bills keep increasing.

“People see price increases of 30% to 40% in the supermarket. And we, restaurant owners, buy the same raw material, the same products. So what do we do? We increase the prices. But then on top comes the price of gas and electricity. Can we do our job without energy sources? The answer is no,” Cury said. “So we have to think a little bit more, and society has to realize how critical the situation is.”

The dramatic rise of inflation in Belgium could have been a deterrent, but 50 guests took part in the dinner Thursday organized as part of the “Brussels in the Dark” initiative involving a dozen of restaurants.

“We are at a point when one needs to choose between being warm at home or eating out,” said Stephane Lepla, on a night out with his girlfriend. “Finding the balance is complicated. So yes, of course, there is a reflection on a daily basis. There are habits that need to change, that we try to change anyway, even if it is not always easy.”
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Irpin, a city in the Kyiv region, was under Russian occupation in March. Officials say over 70% of its infrastructure was damaged. When the Russians retreated, several residents started returning from abroad to help rebuild their city. Anna Kosstutschenko has the story.
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The past and future of film mingle like a pair of moviegoers huddled in debate outside a movie theater at the New York Film Festival, which on Friday launches its 60th edition with the premiere of Noah Baumbach’s Don DeLillo adaptation “White Noise.” 

In those six decades, the Lincoln Center festival has been arguably the premier American nexus of cinema, bringing together a teeming portrait of a movie year with films from around the globe, anticipated fall titles and restored classics. It’s a festival that’s traditionally more stocked with questions than answers. 

“One question we ask ourselves is: What is a New York Film Festival main-slate film? It shouldn’t be something expected,” says Dennis Lim, artistic director of the festival. “It shouldn’t be something that automatically seems like it should belong in the pantheon.”

Canon — and stretching its definitions — has always been top of mind at the New York Film Festival, where films by Satyajit Ray, Akira Kurosawa, Agnès Varda, Pedro Almodovar and Jane Campion have played over the years. The first edition of the festival, in 1963, featured Luis Buñuel, Yasujirō Ozu, Robert Bresson, Roman Polanski and Jean-Luc Godard. NYFF, which gives no awards and offers no industry marketplace, is strictly defined as a showcase of what programmers consider the best. 

“We honor those 60 years of the festival by continuing to be true to its mission, why it was created, what it was intended to serve and the relationship, first and foremost, that it has had with the city of New York,” says Eugene Hernandez, executive director. “It’s a bridge between artists and audiences and has been for 60 years now.”

In the last two years, Lim and Hernandez have sought to reconnect the festival with New York, expanding its footprint around the city. But the pandemic made that difficult. 

The 2020 festival was held virtually and in drive-ins around the city. Last year’s festival brought audiences back, although with considerable COVID-19 precautions. “It’s been a three-year journey to get to this moment,” says Hernandez, who departs after this festival to lead the Sundance Film Festival. 

The 60th NYFF, which will hold screenings in all five boroughs during its run through Oct. 16, this year emphasizes those New York connections with a series of galas for hometown filmmakers. Those include the opening night with Baumbach; a centerpiece for Laura Poitras’ Nan Goldin documentary “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed”; closing night with Elegance Bratton’s semi-autobiographical “The Inspection”; and an anniversary celebration featuring James Gray’s “Armageddon Time,” based on his childhood in Queens. Another high-profile New York story, “She Said,” a drama about The New York Times investigative journalists who helped expose Harvey Weinstein, is also one of the festival’s top world premieres. 

In many ways, little has changed in 60 years. (Godard will be back again this year, with the late iconoclast ‘s “Image Book” playing for free on a loop.) Except, perhaps, that it’s gotten larger, with more sidebars and a busier main slate. 

“The festival for much of its life had only 20, 25 films in its main slate. I think if you tried  to do that now, you’re not really going to really get a full picture of contemporary cinema,” says Lim. “The landscape is so immense.”

Every NYFF brings a mingling of master auteurs and younger filmmakers, but the dichotomy between the two is especially rich this year. Aside from seasoned veterans like Claire Denis (“Stars at Noon”) and Park Chan-wook (“Decision to Leave”), the festival will welcome back longtime regulars Frederick Wiseman (“A Couple”), Martin Scorsese (“Personality Crisis: One Night Only,” a documentary about New York Dolls singer-songwriter David Johansen) and Paul Schrader (“Master Gardner”). Jerzy Skolimowski (“EO”), the 84-year-old Polish filmmaker, and 94-year-old James Ivory (“A Cooler Climate”) will each bookend their inclusion at the third New York Film Festival, more than half a century ago. 

A film like “EO,” which trails a donkey between brutal interactions with humans, is directly engaged with cinema history, paying homage to Robert Bresson’s “Au Hasard Balthazar.” But it also beats a ragged path of its own, something Schrader, the “Taxi Driver” writer and maker recently of “First Reformed” and “The Card Counter,” has been doing, himself, with torturous rigor for decades. These are filmmakers for whom cinema is an unending crusade, full of pain and transcendence. 

Other filmmakers are earlier on their journeys. Several standouts at the festival are debuts. Bratton’s first narrative feature, “The Inspection,” is deeply personal for the 43-year-old director and photographer. Led by a striking performance by Jeremy Pope, it dramatizes Bratton’s own experience as a gay man in boot camp. The treatment he receives there is brutal, with echoes of Stanley Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket.” But in some ways, it’s an improvement from his harsh reality back home. 

The Scottish filmmaker Charlotte Wells also channels personal experience in her brilliantly composed, acutely devastating first feature, “Aftersun,” starring Paul Mescal and Frankie Corio as a father-daughter pair on vacation in Turkey. To a remarkable degree, the film is attuned to every fleeting gesture between the two, and the currents that may be driving them apart. 

Intimacy might seem less relevant to “Till,” the Emmett Till drama making its world premiere. Films about such indelible moments in American history often take a wide lens to capture the full societal scope. But Chinonye Chukwu, in her follow-up to her 2019 breakthrough film “Clemency,” keeps her film centered, often profoundly so, on Till’s mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, played spectacularly by Danielle Deadwyler. “Till,” like many of the films at the festival, is a reminder of just how powerful one person’s testimony can be.
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Comedian Trevor Noah, host of The Daily Show on Comedy Central, said he was going to leave the program after hosting it for seven years, indicating he wanted to dedicate more time to stand-up comedy.

The 38-year-old comedian — who was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and moved to the United States in 2011 — had big shoes to fill when he took over in 2015 after the exit of longtime host Jon Stewart.

He quickly established himself with his own brand, suited for an era where online influence was often greater than that of content on cable.

His reign on The Daily Show required him to delicately cover some crucial moments in American history, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement and the 2021 attacks on the U.S. Capitol.

“I spent two years in my apartment (during COVID-19), not on the road. Stand-up was done, and when I got back out there again, I realized that there’s another part of my life that I want to carry on exploring,” Noah told his studio audience late on Thursday. The Daily Show posted a clip of Noah’s remarks on social media.

“We have laughed together; we have cried together. But after seven years, I feel like it’s time,” Noah said. He ended his remarks by thanking his viewers as his studio audience stood up to applaud him.

Noah, who roasted U.S. politicians and the media at the White House Correspondents Association dinner in April, did not mention his exact departure date in his remarks Thursday. It is not known who would succeed him.

The key to addressing current affairs through a comedic lens lies in a comedian’s intention, Noah said in a 2016 interview with Reuters, adding that he learns from his mistakes.

“I don’t think I would ever have been ready, but that’s when you must do it, you will not be ready,” the comedian told Reuters in the context of having succeeded his legendary predecessor.
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A Spanish court on Tuesday formally ordered Colombian superstar Shakira to stand trial on accusations that she failed to pay $14.31 million in income taxes, a court document released on Tuesday showed.

The ‘Hips Don’t Lie’ singer, 45, whose full name is Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll, rejected in July a deal to settle the case, which meant she would have to stand trial in a case that could see her sent to prison for eight years.

The Esplugues de Llobregat court on Tuesday confirmed the trial will go ahead on a date still to be announced.

The prosecutor is seeking an eight-year prison term for the singer, who is accused of failing to pay taxes between 2012 and 2014, a period in which she said she was leading a “nomadic life” because of her work.

“The order to send Shakira to trial is just another step in any proceedings of this kind. The situation has not changed and everything continues as normal. Shakira’s legal defense will do its job by presenting its written arguments at the appropriate time,” a statement from her lawyers said.

Shakira vowed last week to fight what she claimed were “false” accusations by Spanish authorities and added that she had already paid what the Spanish tax office said she owed before they filed a lawsuit. 
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Kenyan marathon runner Eliud Kipchoge is spurring young athletes to follow in his footsteps after breaking his own world record Sunday in Berlin. 

Cheers erupted from the crowd Sunday at Nairobi’s Karura Forest as they watched Kipchoge race on TV. The watch party followed an amateur marathon organized by the Friends of Karura Forest to celebrate their 25th anniversary.  

Karanja Njoroge, a past chairman of the conservation group who serves on its board, called Kipchoge’s win “absolutely magnificent.”  

“Everybody went wild,” Njoroge said of the crowd at the watch party. “Seeing the guy was way ahead. Everybody felt so elated by the efforts of our king of athletics, Eliud Kipchoge.” 

Kipchoge’s new record, 30 seconds faster than his previous world record set in Berlin in 2018, is now two hours, one minute and nine seconds. Njoroge called it an inspiration. 

“I think it encourages people. Gives people hope. And even those who would never compete begin to believe, because this guy is 37 years old and he’s breaking world records,” Njoroge said. 

Barnabas Korir, an executive member of Athletics Kenya, the governing body for track and field sports, agreed.    

“He’s inspired the youth, but not only the youth but particularly all the athletes from Kenya,” Korir said. “You know Kipchoge is one of the few athletes who is completely determined. He’s also very focused.” 

Korir, who is also chairman of youth development at Athletics Kenya, said camps have been set up nationwide to encourage sports.   

“We got the support from the government to do that and in the last 3 years, Eliud Kipchoge talk to the athletes when they were in the camps,” Korir said. “So, this is an opportunity for us now to give our athletes a symbol that they can do well if they remain focused, if they work hard.” 

Kipchoge has won 15 out of his 17 career marathons, including two Olympic gold medals.  

Daniel Schearf contributed to this report.

 
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Rihanna will take center stage at February’s Super Bowl halftime show.

The singer, who declined to perform in the 2019 Super Bowl halftime show out of solidarity with Colin Kaepernick, will headline the 2023 Super Bowl, the NFL announced Sunday along with Jay-Z’s Roc Nation and Apple Music. Rihanna posted an image on Instagram of an arm outstretched holding an NFL football.

“Rihanna is a generational talent, a woman of humble beginnings who has surpassed expectations at every turn,” Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter, whose Roc Nation is an executive producer of the show, said in a statement. “A person born on the small island of Barbados who became one of the most prominent artists ever. Self-made in business and entertainment.”

The Super Bowl will take place at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, on Feb. 12. After years of Pepsi’s sponsorship, the upcoming halftime show will be sponsored by Apple Music.

Rihanna earlier said she turned down a similar opportunity for the 2019 Super Bowl that was ultimately headlined by Maroon 5. At the time, many artists voiced support for Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback whose 2016 national anthem protests sparked debate throughout football.

“I couldn’t dare do that. For what?” Rihanna told Vogue in 2019. “Who gains from that? Not my people. I just couldn’t be a sellout. I couldn’t be an enabler. There’s things within that organization that I do not agree with at all, and I was not about to go and be of service to them in any way,” she said of the league.

With sales of more than 250 million records worldwide, Rihanna ranks as one of the best-selling female artists ever. Her last album was 2016’s “Anti.”
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Haitian Italian designer Stella Jean returned to the Milan runway after a two-year hiatus with a tour de force that highlighted the talents of 10 new designers of color whose design history is tied to Italy.

Jean pledged in 2020 not to return to Milan Fashion Week, which opened Wednesday, until she was not the only Black designer. The We Are Made in Italy movement she founded with Black American designer Edward Buchanan and Afro Fashion Week Milano founder Michelle Ngomno ensured she would not be.

Maximilian Davis, a 27-year-old British fashion designer with Afro-Caribbean roots, is making his debut as the creative director for Salvatore Ferragamo. Filipino American designer Rhuigi Villasenor is bringing Bally back to the runway for the first time in 20 years. Tokyo James, founded by British Nigerian designer Iniye Tokyo James, is presenting a women’s-only collection.

Jean is headlining a runway show with Buchanan and five new We Are Made in Italy designers, including a Vietnamese apparel designer, an Italian Indian accessory designer and an African American bag designer. It is the third WAMI group to present their collections in Milan.

“We are making ourselves felt,” Jean told The Associated Press. “We invited all these young people. We created the space. There have been gains.”

Buchanan opened the show with jersey knitwear with a denim feel from his Sansonvino 6 line, followed by capsule collections by the latest group of Fabulous Five WAMI designers, and Jean’s creations combining Italian tailoring with artisanal references she sources around the globe.

Each of the new WAMI designers share a connection with Italy, either through family or by relocating to study or work here.

Italian Indian designer Eileen Claudia Akbaraly showed her Made for a Woman brand that makes ethically sourced raffia garments and accessories from Madagascar. New York-based designer Akila Stewart founded the FATRA bag brand that works with reused plastic waste. India-born Neha Poorswani designs shoes under the name “Runway Reinvented.” Vietnamese designer Phang Dang Hoang’s apparel line mixes Asian and Western cultures, and Korean designer Kim Gaeun’s Villain brand combines elements of traditional Korean costumes mixed with modern hip-hop culture.

“There are so many Italians who are not Italians, who are immigrants who feel Italian. I think that is so beautiful,” Stewart said.

The show closed on a celebratory note, with the models, designers and activists gathered on the runway, clapping and swaying to Cynthia Erivo’s song Stand Up.

Both Trussardi and Vogue Italia have used WAMI’s database of fashion professionals of color who are based in Italy, although the listings have not been employed as industrywide as the founders hoped. One of the designers from the first WAMI class, Gisele Claudia Ntsama, has worked in the design office at Valentino.

Giorgio Armani, who helped launch Stella Jean in 2013, pitched in with textiles for the new WAMI capsule collections to be displayed here. Conde Nast and European fashion magazine nss are helping to fund their production. The three WAMI founders are covering the rest from their own pockets after the fashion council offered a venue for the show but limited funding compared with previous seasons.

Ngonmo said Italian fashion houses too often confuse diversity — such as showcasing Black models — with true inclusivity, which would involve employing professionals in the creative process.

“I have a feeling they don’t understand at all what diversity means. They tend to confuse diversity with inclusion,” she said.

Buchanan said he holds on to his optimism but acknowledged that the post-pandemic market is difficult as stores are not investing in collections by new designers.

“We knew going into this that this was going to be a slow grow,” Buchanan said. “Working with the designers, we have to be transparent about what is ahead of them. … They are not going to be Gianni Versace tomorrow.”

Jean noted that the new designers for major fashion brands did not come up through the Italian system but from abroad. Despite the progress, she and her collaborators still see some resistance to hiring people of color in creative roles and to the idea that “Made in Italy” can involve homegrown Black talent.

“It is more glamorous to have someone from the outside,” she said.

Jean said she is also waiting for the Italian fashion council to follow through on an invitation to create a multicultural board within its structure. She said she feels the initial industry embrace of the diversity project has cooled.

“None of us believed the totality of the promises. Now we are entering a territory that we know well, when people feel free and comfortable not to maintain promises. It is obvious,” Jean said.

As for her future: “I am at a crossroads,” the designer said. “My traveling companions are outside the door that I was allowed to enter. For a while, being the only one in the room, you feel special. But when you see that many of those who are still outside the door are better than you, you understand that you were not special. You were very lucky.”
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This day, this match, had to come, of course, for Roger Federer, and for tennis, just as it inevitably must for every athlete in every sport.

Federer bid adieu Friday night with one last contest before he heads into retirement at age 41 after a superlative career that included 20 Grand Slam titles and a statesman’s role. He wrapped up his days as a professional player with a loss in doubles alongside his longtime rival Rafael Nadal for Team Europe in the Laver Cup against Frances Tiafoe and Jack Sock of Team World.

The truth is that the victors, the statistics and the score (OK, for the record it was 4-6, 7-6 (2), 11-9) did not matter, and were all so entirely beside the point. The occasion was, after all, about the farewell itself. Or, better, the farewells, plural: Federer’s to tennis, to the fans, to his competitors and colleagues. And, naturally, each of those entities’ farewells to Federer.

“It’s been a perfect journey,” Federer said. “I would do it all over again.”

When the match, and with it, his time in professional tennis, ended, Federer hugged Nadal, then Tiafoe and Sock. And then Federer began crying. As cascades of clapping and yells of affection came from the stands, Federer put his hands on his hips, his chest heaving. Then he mouthed, “Thank you,” while applauding right back toward the spectators who had chanted, “Let’s go, Roger! Let’s go!” during the concluding moments of a match that lasted more than two hours and ended at about 12:30 a.m.

The Swiss star announced last week that the three-day team event, which was founded by his management company, would be his final event before retirement, then made clear the doubles outing would be his last match. His surgically repaired right knee — the last of three operations came shortly after a loss in the Wimbledon quarterfinals in July 2021, which will go down as his final official singles match — is in no shape to allow him to continue.

“For me, just personally, (it was) sad in the first moment, when I came to the conclusion it’s the best decision,” Federer said in an interview with The Associated Press this week about his emotions when realizing it was time to go. “I kind of held it in at first, then fought it off. But I could feel the pain.”

A couple of hours before Friday’s match, Federer tweeted: “I’ve done this thousands of times, but this one feels different. Thank you to everybody who’s coming tonight.”

He had said he wanted this to feel more like a party than a funeral, and the crowd obliged, rising for a loud and lengthy standing ovation when Federer and Nadal — each wearing a white bandanna, blue shirt and white shorts — emerged together from a tunnel leading out to the black court for the last match on Day 1 at the O2 Arena. The spectators remained on their feet for nearly 10 minutes, through the pre-match warmup, holding aloft phone cameras to capture the moment.

They came ready to roar for him, some with Swiss flags, some with homemade signs, and they made themselves heard with a wall of sound when Federer delivered a forehand volley winner on the match’s second point. Similar reactions arrived merely at the chair umpire’s announcement before the third game of “Roger Federer to serve,” and again when he closed that game with a 117 mph service winner.

Doubles requires far less movement and court coverage, of course, so the stress on his knee was limited Friday. Federer showed touches of his old flair, to be sure, and of rust, as to be expected.

As his parents and wife sat in front-row seats behind a baseline, there were a couple of early forehands that sailed several feet too long. There also was a forehand that slid right between Sock and Tiafoe and seemed too good to be true — and, it turned out, was: The ball traveled through a gap below the net tape and so the point was taken away from Federer and Nadal.

Although it amounted to, essentially, a glorified exhibition, all four doubles participants played as if they wanted to win. That was clear when Sock leaped and screamed after one particularly terrific volley or when Tiafoe sent a couple of shots right at Federer and Nadal.

But the circumstances did allow for moments of levity.

Federer and Nadal were able to laugh after a bit of confusion over which should go for a ball on a point they lost. After Nadal somehow flicked one back-to-the-net shot around the post, only for it to land barely wide, Tiafoe crossed over to extend a hand with congratulations for the effort.

In the first set, the two greats of the game couldn’t quite hear each other between points, so Federer trotted from the net back to the baseline to consult with Nadal, then pointed to his ear to signal to the fans what the issue was.

Before Federer, the men’s mark for most major tennis championships was 14 by Pete Sampras. Federer blew past that, accumulating eight at Wimbledon, six at the Australian Open, five at the U.S. Open and one at the French Open, setting a new standard that Nadal, now with 22, and Novak Djokovic, with 21, equaled, then surpassed, as part of a golden era for the sport.

Federer’s substantial resume includes 310 weeks at No. 1 in the ATP rankings, a Davis Cup title and Olympic medals. Beyond the elegance and effectiveness while wielding a racket, his persona made Federer an ambassador for tennis, someone whose immense popularity helped attract fans.

Surely, there are those who would have found it particularly apt to see Federer finish across the net from Nadal, often an on-court nemesis but eventually an off-court friend. Maybe it could have taken place about 15 miles away at Centre Court of the All England Club, say, or in Court Philippe Chatrier at Roland Garros, or Rod Laver Arena at Melbourne Park, or even Arthur Ashe Stadium, the centerpiece of the U.S. Open, the lone Grand Slam tournament at which they never faced off, somehow.

Perhaps they could have provided everyone with one final installment of a head-to-head matchup as memorable as any in the long history of their sport — or, indeed, any other.

Roger vs. Rafa — just one name apiece required — belongs up there with McEnroe vs. Borg (as it happens, the two Laver Cup team captains, John and Bjorn), Evert vs. Navratilova, Sampras vs. Agassi, Ali vs. Frazier, Magic vs. Bird, Brady vs. Manning, and so on.

Over the years, Federer and Nadal showed off individual greatness and compelling contrasts across their 40 matches, 14 at Grand Slam tournaments, nine in major finals: righty vs. lefty, attacker vs. grinder, seeming effortlessness vs. relentless intensity.

And yet, there was an unmistakable element of poetry with these two men who challenged each other and elevated each other performing as partners, slapping palms and sharing smiles.

“Two of the ‘GOATs’ playing together,” said Sock, using the popular acronym for “Greatest of All-Time.”

This goodbye follows that of Serena Williams, the owner of 23 major singles championships, at the U.S. Open three weeks ago after a third-round loss. It leaves questions about the future of a game he and she dominated, and transcended, for decades.

One key difference: Each time Williams took the court in New York, the looming question was how long her stay would endure — a “win or this is it” prospect. Friday WAS it for Federer, no matter the result.

“All the players will miss him,” said Casper Ruud, who beat Sock in singles 6-4, 5-7, 10-7.

The other results, which left Team Europe and Team World tied at 2-2: Stefanos Tsitsipas defeated Diego Schwartzman 6-2, 6-1 in a match interrupted briefly when an environmental protester lit a portion of the court and his own arm on fire, and Alex de Minaur got past Andy Murray 5-7, 6-3, 10-7.

Due to begin playing shortly after the end of Murray’s loss, Federer and Nadal first provided him with some coaching tips, then watched part of that one on TV together in a room at the arena, waiting for their turn. When Federer and Nadal were in action, it was Djokovic’s turn to suggest strategic advice.

The last hurrah came after a total of 103 career singles trophies and 1,251 wins in singles matches for Federer, both second only to Jimmy Connors in the Open era, which began in 1968.

At the height of his powers, Federer appeared in a record 10 consecutive Grand Slam finals, winning eight, from 2005-07. Extend that to 2010, and he reached 18 of 19 major finals.

More than those numbers, folks will remember the powerful forehand, the one-handed backhand, the flawless footwork, the spectacularly effective serve and eagerness to get to the net, the willingness to reinvent aspects of his game and — the part of which he’s proudest — unusual longevity.

“I don’t think we’ll see another guy like Roger,” Tiafoe said. “The way he played, and the grace he did it with, and who he is as an individual.”
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A movie portraying an all-female warrior unit that centuries ago defended the West African kingdom of Dahomey, what is today the country of Benin, is drawing both praise and criticism. VOA’s Penelope Poulou reports, “The Woman King” has an all-black and mostly female cast, a first for a major Hollywood motion picture. But some critics note it had little African involvement.
Produced by: Penelope Poulou
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